Donovan McNabb is overdue to spend part of his career, even if it’s the end of it, in a place where he’s appreciated. Especially after 11 years in Philadelphia and what had to feel like 11 more in Shanny-delphia.

Minnesota appears to be that place for McNabb. Oh, technically, as of late Wednesday morning he had not become a Viking, but whatever happens in Minnesota can’t be worse than how things evolved in Washington over the last 15 months.

Good for him. Good for the Vikings, too. There’s no guarantee that this marriage will work, but it can’t possibly work worse than the marriages both sides are getting out of.

This Vikings regime appears to recognize how much a quarterback has left in his tank, what his value is to them, and whether his baggage is worth the price.

McNabb has baggage, but it still looks as if the majority of it was loaded onto his back by Mike Shanahan, who fell in love with him then soured on him in pretty close to record time. It still says here that McNabb never played poorly enough to deserve the treatment he got from the new man in charge in D.C. – and there still hasn’t been enough concrete proof (as opposed to whispers and innuendo) that he was the dog in practice he was made out to be.

Whatever did happen during the course of the disastrous first season with Shanahan and McNabb in Washington, the result was that the accomplished veteran quarterback had his name dragged through the mud and his trade value detonated. To hear the scuttlebutt out of Redskins Park, the man with a Super Bowl and four other NFC title-game trips was so worthless he’d likely get released sometime before opening day.

Turns out McNabb has value after all. Credit the Redskins for finding a taker, or the Vikings for wading through the pool of slander to come to a (low) price, but McNabb didn’t end up just being given away. No, the Redskins didn’t get back what they paid for him. That’s for them to live with, for paying out as much as they did in the first place, or for driving his value into the ground, or both.

The Vikings made it clear that they didn’t want to take any chances. There had been talk at the end of last season – before the lockout – that he was their primary target. Post-lockout, and post-Christian Ponder drafting, they kept their eyes clear and focused. They knew they still had the goods to make a Super Bowl run, and knew that as much as they obviously value Ponder, they weren’t ready to hand the reins of a serious contender over to him yet.

Yup, you’ve heard this from the Vikings before about veteran quarterbacks who could put them over the top. This is a new era, though. The old coach who lowered himself and surrendered every shred of his authority in his chase of a certain quarterback who shall not be named … he’s gone. That quarterback who shall not be named … gone, too, as is the annual will-he-or-won’t-he soap opera. (Also over: all discussion of sexting as related to this historically proud franchise or anyone affiliated with it.)

As much of a chance as there is that McNabb might have hit his career wall last season in Washington, it’s near-inconceivable that his game has fallen off the cliff as much and as fast as that previous gunslingin’ legend in purple saw his fall off last season.

Granted, McNabb did not look like the McNabb of his heyday in Philadelphia – but he didn’t look so bad that either Rex Grossman or John Beck should have been considered a viable alternative. As much as he was yanked around in the second half of last season by the double-talking Shanahans (Mike and offensive coordinator Kyle) and their perplexing implications about “cardiovascular endurance” and poor work ethic, it was impossible to guess what he or the team might have turned into over a full season had he just been left alone to run the team.

Leslie Frazier, the new and formerly interim coach in Minnesota, lent an air of both stability and sanity to the Vikings’ surroundings. McNabb adds more. The fact that the franchise chose McNabb to take them the next step, does the same.

Of course, the fact that two of their division rivals landed in the NFC championship game, with one now the Super Bowl champs, makes it a pretty long step.

Still, both the Vikings and McNabb are in a better place. The more distant 2010 becomes for both, the better.